Blog of Aestheticized Violence.
Cornell University, Classes: One Girl in All the World and American Flow

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Women Never Winning

After reading an article on the internet, I came to realize that it doesn't matter how classy or how slutty a superheroine is because somehow she will still be turned into a sex icon. This article lists the "10 Superhot Superhero Girlfriends." Number 7 is Jean Grey who, as we concluded in class, was one of the more conservative superheroines we studied. Apparently, however, her hot attributes are her tight clothing and catching on fire "which has gotta be a lot of fun."

It is frustrating that even after being a more properly dressed superhero, Jean Grey still has to be talked about in this way. Instead of her being represented as a powerful woman, she is said to "always remember everything, which can be a plus for the absent-minded superhero." This is not what Jean Grey is all about. Her powers are not to aid men but to help the world. It is a shame that this article views her in such a bad way.

4 comments:

I agree, articles like this are really frustrating to see. I was especially bothered by the first description of the website: "Every handsome, chiseled superhero needs his gorgeous superhero girlfriend to make him look all the better when he's fighting bad guys, smashing buildings or just chillin' in a dark alley, awaiting a totally unexpected attack from more bad guys." This clearly states that the entire purpose of the hot girlfriend is to make the superhero himself look better.

I'm really surprised that Jean Grey would be on the list. Not like I think that her and Scott Summer's relationship isn't legitimate, but I'd expect that characters on the "Superhero Girlfriends" list would be supplementary characters that are literally just "the girlfriend." It really goes to show that the expectation for women in comics to always be sexy, that readers will go out of the way to find ways to find each character sexually attractive.